Summer Recommended Reading

Summer is the perfect time to relax with a good book. While beach reads and escape novels are great ways to unwind, the Admission Leadership Council (ALC) also has some suggestions to enhance your professional development this season. Get a jump on the next admission cycle and take advantage of the (slightly) less busy season to curl up with one of their summer reading suggestions:

How to Raise an Adult: Break Free of the Overparenting Trap and Prepare Your Kid for Successby Julie Lythcott-Haims

Julie Lythcott-Haims draws on research, conversations with admission officers, educators, and employers, and her own insights as a mother and as a student dean to highlight the ways in which overparenting harms children, their stressed-out parents, and society at large. While empathizing with the parental hopes and, especially, fears that lead to overhelping, Lythcott-Haims offers practical alternative strategies that underline the importance of allowing children to make their own mistakes and develop the resilience, resourcefulness, and inner determination necessary for success.

What Does It Mean to Be White? Developing White Racial Literacyby Robin DiAngelo

What does it mean to be white in a society that proclaims race meaningless, yet is deeply divided by race? In the face of pervasive racial inequality and segregation, most white people cannot answer that question. In the second edition of this seminal text, Robin DiAngelo reveals the factors that make this question so difficult: mis-education about what racism is; ideologies such as individualism and colorblindness; segregation; and the belief that to be complicit in racism is to be an immoral person. Speaking as a white person to other white people, DiAngelo clearly and compellingly takes readers through an analysis of white socialization.

The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck: A Counterintuitive Approach to Living a Good Lifeby Mark Manson

In this generation-defining self-help guide, a superstar blogger cuts through the crap to show us how to stop trying to be "positive" all the time so that we can truly become better, happier people.

The Hate U Giveby Angie Thomas

Sixteen-year-old Starr Carter moves between two worlds: the poor neighborhood where she lives and the fancy suburban prep school she attends. The uneasy balance between these worlds is shattered when Starr witnesses the fatal shooting of her unarmed childhood best friend Khalil at the hands of a police officer. Soon afterward, his death is a national headline. What everyone wants to know is: what really went down that night? And the only person alive who can answer that is Starr. But what Starr does—or does not—say could upend her community and endanger her life.

Social: Why Our Brains Are Wired to Connectby Matthew D. Lieberman

Renowned psychologist Matthew Lieberman explores groundbreaking research in social neuroscience revealing that our need to connect with other people is even more fundamental, more basic, than our need for food or shelter. Because of this, our brain uses its spare time to learn about the social world--other people and our relation to them. It is believed that we must commit 10,000 hours to master a skill. According to Lieberman, each of us has spent 10,000 hours learning to make sense of people and groups by the time we are ten.

Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankindby Yuval Noah Harari

From a renowned historian comes a groundbreaking narrative of humanity’s creation and evolution—a #1 international bestseller—that explores the ways in which biology and history have defined us and enhanced our understanding of what it means to be “human.” One hundred thousand years ago, at least six different species of humans inhabited Earth. Yet today there is only one—homo sapiens. What happened to the others? And what may happen to us?

The Art of Selling to the Affluent: How to Attract, Service, and Retain Wealthy Customers and Clients for Lifeby Matt Oechsli

Much has changed since the original The Art of Selling to the Affluent was published. The financial crisis has affected the affluent as well as the less affluent. This book brings you up to date with today's affluent and helps every salesperson understand what adjustments need to be made in order to successfully attract, service, and retain lifelong affluent customers and clients. Completely updated and revised, it is based on The Oechli Institute's latest 2013 comprehensive research.

Be Our Guest: Perfecting the Art of Customer Serviceby The Disney Institute

Exceeding expectations rather than simply satisfying them is the cornerstone of the Disney approach to customer service. Now, in honor of the tenth anniversary of the original Be Our Guest, Disney Institute is revealing even more of the business behind the magic of quality service. During the last twenty-five years, thousands of professionals from more than thirty-five countries and more than forty industries have attended business programs at Disney Institute and learned how to adapt the Disney approach for their own organizations.

Fierce Conversations: Achieving Success at Work and in Life One Conversation at a Timeby Susan Scott

The master teacher of positive change through powerful communication, Susan Scott wants you to succeed. To do that, she explains, you must transform everyday conversations at work and at home with effective ways to get your message across—and get what you want.

One Teacher in Ten in the New Millennium: LGBT Educators Speak Out About What's Gotten Better . . . and What Hasn'tby Kevin Jennings

For more than twenty years, the One Teacher in Ten series has served as an invaluable source of strength and inspiration for lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender educators. This all-new edition brings together stories from across America—and around the world—resulting in a rich tapestry of varied experiences. Voices largely absent from the first two editions—including transgender people, people of color, teachers working in rural districts, and educators from outside the United States—feature prominently in this new collection, providing a fuller and deeper understanding of the triumphs and challenges of being an LGBT teacher today.

Explore issues impacting the education of African American girls and many of challenges that they encounter during their schooling experiences.

Courageous Conversations About Race: A Field Guide for Achieving Equity in Schoolsby Glenn E. Singleton

This updated edition of the bestseller continues to explain the need for candid, courageous conversations about race so that educators may understand why achievement inequality persists and learn how they can develop a curriculum that promotes true educational equity and excellence.

Between the World and Meby Ta-Nehisi Coates

In a profound work that pivots from the biggest questions about American history and ideals to the most intimate concerns of a father for his son, Ta-Nehisi Coates offers a powerful new framework for understanding our nation’s history and current crisis. Americans have built an empire on the idea of “race,” a falsehood that damages us all but falls most heavily on the bodies of black women and men—bodies exploited through slavery and segregation, and, today, threatened, locked up, and murdered out of all proportion. What is it like to inhabit a black body and find a way to live within it? And how can we all honestly reckon with this fraught history and free ourselves from its burden?

The Origin of Othersby Toni Morrisson

America’s foremost novelist reflects on the themes that preoccupy her work and increasingly dominate national and world politics: race, fear, borders, the mass movement of peoples, the desire for belonging. What is race and why does it matter? What motivates the human tendency to construct Others? Why does the presence of Others make us so afraid?

Blindspot: Hidden Biases of Good People by Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald

Leading psychologists Mahzarin R. Banaji and Anthony G. Greenwald explore the hidden biases we all carry from a lifetime of exposure to cultural attitudes about age, gender, race, ethnicity, religion, social class, sexuality, disability status, and nationality. By gaining awareness, we can adapt beliefs and behavior and “outsmart the machine” in our heads so we can be fairer to those around us.

Bestselling author Michele Borba offers a 9-step program to help parents cultivate empathy in children, from birth to young adulthood—and explains why developing a healthy sense of empathy is a key predictor of which kids will thrive and succeed in the future.

When Breath Becomes Airby Pail Kalanithi

What makes life worth living in the face of death? What do you do when the future flattens out into a perpetual present? What does it mean to have a child, nurturing a new life as another fades away? These are some of the questions Kalanithi explores in this moving memoir.

Quiet: The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talkingby Susan Cain

In Quiet, Susan Cain argues that we dramatically undervalue introverts and shows how much we lose in doing so. She charts the twentieth century rise of the Extrovert Ideal and explores how deeply it has permeated our culture. She also introduces us to successful introverts. Passionately argued, superbly researched, and filled with indelible stories of real people, Quiet has the power to permanently change both how we see introverts and how they see themselves.

The Other Wes Moore: One Name, Two Fatesby Wes Moore

Wes Moore was a keynote speaker at the 2012 Annual Conference in Chicago.

Two kids named Wes Moore were born blocks apart within a year of each other. Both grew up fatherless in Baltimore neighborhoods that were very similar and had difficult childhoods; both hung out on street corners; both got into trouble with the law. How did one grow up to be a Rhodes Scholar, decorated veteran, White House Fellow, and business leader, while the other ended up a convicted murderer serving a life sentence?

The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indianby Sherman Alexie

Heartbreaking, funny, and beautifully written, The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian, which is based on the author's own experiences, chronicles the contemporary adolescence of a Native American boy as he tries to break away from the life he was destined to live.

Grit: The Power of Passion and Perseveranceby Angela Duckworth

Angela Duckworth was a keynote speaker at the 2013 Annual Conference in Philadelphia.

In this bestselling book, psychologist Angela Duckworth shows anyone striving to succeed that the secret to outstanding achievement is not talent but a special blend of passion and persistence she calls “grit.” She describes her hypothesis that what really drives success is not “genius” but grit, gleaning historical insights and exploring modern experiments in peak performance, sharing what she’s learned from interviewing dozens of high achievers.

Thinking, Fast and Slowby Daniel Kahneman

Renowned psychologist and winner of the Nobel Prize in Economics Daniel Kahneman takes us on a groundbreaking tour of the mind and explains the two systems that drive the way we think: System 1 (fast, intuitive, and emotional) and System 2 (slower, more deliberative, and more logical). Kahneman reveals where we can and cannot trust our intuition and how we can tap into the benefits of slow thinking, offering practical and enlightening insights into how choices are made in both our business and our personal lives and techniques to guard against the mental glitches that often get us into trouble.

Tribe: On Homecoming and Belongingby Sebastian Junger

Combining history, psychology, and anthropology, TRIBE explores what we can learn from tribal societies about loyalty, belonging, and the eternal human quest for meaning. It explains the irony that-for many veterans as well as civilians-war feels better than peace, adversity can turn out to be a blessing, and disasters are sometimes remembered more fondly than weddings or tropical vacations. TRIBE explains why we are stronger when we come together, and how that can be achieved even in today's divided world.

Whistling Vivaldi: How Stereotypes Affect Us and What We Can Do (Issues of Our Time)by Claude Steele

Claude M. Steele offers a vivid first-person account of the research that supports his groundbreaking conclusions on stereotypes and identity. He sheds new light on American social phenomena from racial and gender gaps in test scores to the belief in the superior athletic prowess of black men, and lays out a plan for mitigating these “stereotype threats” and reshaping American identities.

William E. Sedlacek--one of the nation's leading authorities on the topic of noncognitive assessment--challenges the use of the SAT and other standardized tests as the sole assessment tool for college and university admission. Here, he presents a noncognitive assessment method that can be used in concert with the standardized test, measuring what students know by evaluating what they can do and how they deal with a wide range of problems in different contexts.